On the Saints

“Saints experience the depth and richness of God’s grace precisely because their faith hangs precariously at that point where the tragic is always present. Our broken world is poised on a precarious fulcrum and wobbles between glory and the grotesque, beauty and the brokenness, grace and tragedy. Saints are those who live their faith close to this tottering hinge—because it’s only by being close enough to see the world’s pain that we can ever hope to see God’s face in the same world.” (James K.A. Smith, The Secret Lives of the Saints: Reflections on Doubt)

“A saint can fail in a way that the hero can’t, because the failure of the saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that’s always fundamentally about God.” (Samuel Wells quoted by Lauren Winners, Still)